I am a Managing Partner at Brookside Strategies, LLC, an energy and utility management consulting firm based in Darien, Connecticut. I've spilled blood, sweat and tears grappling with the full spectrum of barriers and misconceptions about distributed generation and energy-efficiency technologies. Previously, I practiced law in New York City at Paul Weiss Rifkind Garrison & Wharton, LLP and Jenner & Block, LLP. I also attended journalism school at Columbia University and earned a JD at Stanford Law School. I've written about energy and environmental issues for Forbes, The Nation, Mother Jones and several other publications. I am the Chair of the Northeast Clean Heat and Power Initiative. Drop me a line - or two - at wmp@cleanbeta.com.

This is a shame. In 2011, the DoD pumped about $233 billion into the gears of its innovation juggernaut.

While the DoD expects to reduce energy demand at military facilities, this will affect only about one-quarter of DoD’s energy usage. The remaining 75% is consumed in operations. The idea is that the DoD is all about mission and will concentrate its innovation capabilities “on technologies that are most likely to contribute to the military’s mission.”

In other words, while the DoD may install an occasional solar panel on military bases in Nevada or California, it is unlikely to change its preference for effectiveness first and efficiency second in operational areas, which account for nearly 75% of the military’s energy consumption.

This is where the analysis goes sideways. After explaining why the military’s operations are unlikely to drive innovation in clean energy, the report explains why fuel cells would contribute to the DoD’s core mission of enhanced fighting capabilities, why fuel cells are ripe for the kind of bumper to bumper innovation support only the DoD can deliver and then proceeds to conclude that the DoD is an unlikely to drive clean-energy innovation.

Practical small fuel cells would provide a basis for lightweight power packs for soldiers. Larger units could replace towed diesel generators and serve as auxiliary power units to minimize inefficient low-load operation of the main engines in ground vehicles and naval vessels.

Like batteries, fuel cells convert chemical energy directly (i.e., in a single step) into electrical power. In fuel cells, as in primary batteries, the chemical reactions that produce electricity cannot be reversed; but unlike such batteries, a fuel cell can be refilled—e.g., with hydrogen [alcohol, methane, natural gas, propane, biofuels, etc.]—to provide a new ‘charge’ of chemical energy . . . Because all of these contain far more energy per unit of weight than the chemicals in even the best batteries, fuel cells promise advantages in energy density of 20 to 50 or even 100 times.

Fuel cells and batteries offer relatively high efficiency (the fraction of energy theoretically available that can be converted into useful work) compared to most other energy converters. The best diesel engines, for example, approach 40 percent efficiency under optimal conditions (i.e., the load-speed combination that gives the highest efficiency). While this is better than gasoline engines or gas turbines can achieve, some batteries approach 90 percent efficiency.

The BPC study notes a previous analysis by the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) that claimed that eliminating the need for batteries with fuel cells would “change the game” in military operations.

Despite these observations, the study concludes that the “DoD should put greater emphasis on low-power design” – dismissing the promise of fuel cells it listed in the previous section as presumably irrelevant. To summarize, the report recognizes that innovations in fuel cell technology, which is an example of the low-carbon energy technologies the report claims the DoD is not likely to support, would advance the military’s core mission in a clear and compelling manner. Regardless of this linkage, the report urges the military to pursue low-power designs rather than advances in fuel cell technologies.

The logic for this strange treatment of fuel cells is explained like so: “Unlike solar and wind power, however, and despite massive investments in R&D over the past two decades motivated chiefly by prospective applications to electric vehicles, fuel cells have not been commercialized to any great extent.”

Post Your Comment

Post Your Reply

Forbes writers have the ability to call out member comments they find particularly interesting. Called-out comments are highlighted across the Forbes network. You'll be notified if your comment is called out.

Comments

Thanks for your article on CSPO’s report. The report is doing its job of spurring discussion of what to expect from DOD energy innovation! Some thoughts on your post:

I think one of the mix-ups you may be having is discerning between the impact of DOD’s energy innovation investments for its mission vs. the impacts of those investments on spillover into the commercial sector. The point of the report, as I read it, is that DOD’s energy innovation system will target investments on mission-specific goals and that some of them may preclude spillovers into the commercial sector (microgrids, for example) but others may not. DOD will spur a lot of energy innovation, but not all of it will be useful to utilities, consumers, etc. It essentially puts a border around expectations.

And given that mission focus, the report recommends that instead of putting all of its eggs in batteries and fuel cells, DOD would do better to reach its goals by focusing on reworking their soldier design packs and electronics to reduce energy consumption and weight. In their perspective, DOD will always buy the lightest batteries at any cost (and the government is investing a lot of $$’s in next-gen batteries right now outside of DOD), so their money is better spent elsewhere.

So it goes back to what is best for DOD’s mission, not necessarily what is best for the commercial sector. In this case, the report finds other innovations in low-power design will get a better bang-for-the-buck than more money in fuel cells. You are right to point out that it would be great to have DOD’s robust innovation ecosystem work on these problems, but that’s not what it’s there for. Instead we need to try and build that ecosystem outside of DOD and in partnership with them – but that’s a bigger policy discussion.

Matthew, Thanks for your comment. To be blunt, the mission is putting bad guys out of business not getting “a better bang-for-the-buck.” New technologies are almost always energy gluttons – commercial or non-commercial. What matters initially is the new capability a technology enables. Efficiency is secondary. The operational advantages promised by modest improvements in fuel cells have been extensively documented by the National Academy of Sciences and etc.

The military should NOT support development of energy storage and fuel cell technologies for commercial reasons, but because appreciable improvements in fuel cells and energy storage technology would make the military better at putting bad guys out of business.

The profligate consumption of energy is tolerated if the technology delivers battlefield supremacy. Why? Because battlefield supremacy is the mission.

Long term planning is essential to the military. Currently those inefficient means are relying on, and competing for, the same resources as the opposition. Creating a technology that utilizes other resources for the same outcome lessens the competition for the original resource; thereby allowing the opposition more of the resource. If there is such an advantage that has been developed, that the opposition cannot utilize, then holding the technology has a long term purpose. It depletes the oppositions’ resources as the holding force already possesses the solution to the issues that the opposition will encounter.